Publication Guide

About ZIP.ch and the edition form for your directory listings

ZIP.ch is the official Swiss directory for the simple and free management of the online presence for brands, companies and individuals who are looking to increase their popularity and transform their listings into real local showcases.

The edition form is the publication toolbox for the value-added content that you want to highlight, accessible from your ‘My Account’ customer area. Through this you can manage the additional information that you want to share with the directory users for all your listings.

The edition form includes the following features:

• The addition of other contacts to the basic data (people, e-mail addresses, web addresses and telephone / fax numbers)
  
• The selection of categories and the business sector
  
• The integration of social networks and messaging applications such as Skype, Messenger, Viber, WhatsApp, Snapchat, etc.
  
• The addition of text, illustrations and videos
  
• The display of the opening hours of your establishment, your current promotions and the payment methods that are available to your customers

It also offers access to Premium offers for those looking for optimal and professional visibility, in short... a true advertising board in the ZIP.ch directory.

Claim your listing

Confirmation is a necessary step in authenticating your listing on ZIP.ch and to accessing the full functionality of the edition form, once the process has been completed. You will find more information about the entry of your account as well as the different methods of confirmation in our online help. Note that it is possible to confirm multiple listings through a single account.

Getting started with the edition form

Once you have completed the confirmation, your listing appears on the ‘My listings’ tab of your account. Click the ‘Edit’ button for the entry you wish to modify:  

You can also click on the ‘Claim and complete this listing for free’ button, available in the details of your listing displayed during a search.

From here you can begin to enrich your listing with items of your choosing: photo gallery, video, description of your establishment, social networks...; in short, everything is provided for you to express yourself as you much as you want.

Note: The ‘Claim and complete this listing for free’ button only appears until you have claimed it. See our FAQs for more information.

The edition form is divided into several areas specific to the content you want to manage. The first section includes:

1. Your last name, first name and your profession or company name (in principle, the constituent elements of your basic data, which cannot be changed via the edition form)
   
2. Your business activity allowing the user to find your listing via targeted search (not to be confused with the categories that specify the search)
   
3. A display of the detail of your listing displayed during a search
   

Your current contacts:

This section consists of your contacts included in your basic data (fixed and cannot be changed via the edition form):

Add your Website or Blog

Insert the address of your website in this field, as shown below:

The categories

A user searching for an establishment or a service often uses categories or business sectors with the search engine in order to target the search. This is where these come in. They are the extensible arm of the business sector you defined in the first section of the edition form. Define the categories you think best describe your business activity. Note that Premium subscribers can add more categories. For more information about our subscriptions, click here.

Please note that it is possible to suggest categories that are not already included in the available list.

The one or more selected categories will then appear in the introduction section of your listing details during a search.

Description of your activities

Enter the text you see fit to say more about yourself and your business. The entry description plays a complementary role in the positioning during a search, in addition to the categories and the Top Position option that you can add. Make sure the content of your description is relevant!

Tip: By selecting the section of text you want to format, you can change its appearance (from left to right) so that it appears: 

• in bold
  

• in italics
• underlined
• in a list
• as a title
• or as a quotation

Add your social networks

Social networks are the purveyor of popularity and commitment par excellence and can propel you to the front of the stage. Select the networks on which you are active and get closer to your audience. To do this, open a new tab in your browser and go to the relevant social network. Then copy your profile name from immediately after the ‘/’ (in the navigation URL) and paste it into the corresponding part of your listing form.

To integrate LinkedIn, follow these steps:

Individual public profile

Open a new tab in your browser

Go to your LinkedIn profile.

Select the ‘Profile’ tab

Copy the last element of the URL displayed below your profile picture as shown below:

Paste the element with the ‘pub/’ or ‘in/’ in the corresponding area 

Save your addition by clicking on ‘Save’

Note that only the administrators of a LinkedIn corporate page can access their custom URL. Find out more about this at www.linkedIn.com/assistance

Top Position

The Top Position option is available as a monthly subscription. It allows you to have your listing placed among the first search results according to location, business sectors, or by categories for example, throughout that period.

Tip: By adding more categories to your listing, you increase your performance for several search scenarios. In other words, the more categories you add to your listing, the more your Top Position option scope is expanded, pushing your listing to one of the best place in the search results.

You can also positively influence the position of your listing within the lead group by carefully choosing the words used in your description.   

Enhanced Listing - better visibility in search results  

The Enhanced Listing feature is included with the Premium Business subscription. It places the illustration (visible in your listing details during a search) directly in the list of search results. This is a recommended addition to the Top Position option, guaranteeing ideal differentiation.

The example below perfectly illustrates the Enhanced Listing principle. Here the user enters two categories for their search (‘garage’ and ‘Lausanne’):

Security and moderation

At ZIP.ch, we strongly believe we can go further by establishing strong and constructive relationships with others.

This platform has been designed to enhance the visibility of your business or your establishment. It is therefore important for us to maintain a positive and secure environment for everyone. We therefore ask you to follow some simple rules of good conduct, which are summarized below:

Description: present yourself while making sure to keep a pleasant, courteous and informative tone to the reader. Avoid rudeness and tones that are negative, harmful, obscene, etc. They will not benefit you!

Images: select images that add value to you. No images that are pornographic, obscene, violent, racist, political, etc. will be tolerated in the ZIP.ch directory.

Video: the videos you choose to share in the ZIP.ch directory come from external sources such as YouTube, Vimeo, etc. A pre-moderation process has therefore already been carried out upstream by these content providers listed above.

ZIP.ch plays particular attention to the contents published in the directory. Help us keep this platform pleasant for all and report to us any content contrary to these rules, those of the Legal Notice or those of netiquette.

Legal considerations:

• Please post only the information you have the right to publish.
  
• The ZIP.ch name and trademark and all associated elements are the exclusive property of ZIP.ch AG. Without the prior written consent of ZIP.ch AG, you are not authorized to use the ZIP.ch trademark or any associated elements.
  
• ZIP.ch is not responsible for the content disseminated by users of the directory (copyright infringement, illegal content, encouragement of illegal practices, links to illegal sites, file sharing sites, etc.).
  
• Please note that the publications and comments posted in the ZIP.ch directory do not reflect the opinion of ZIP.ch AG or of its employees and business partners.
  
• By using ZIP.ch, you also agree to respect the Legal Conditions and the Legal Notice published on the ZIP.ch portal.
  
• ZIP.ch AG will make the final decision in case of disputes or requests for clarification on any of the regulations.
  
• You can consult our Legal Notice and our Terms and Conditions for more information on this subject.
  

How does positioning on ZIP.ch work?

The next two sections summarize the main strategy to help the positioning of your listing in a list of search results. Read the following carefully!

Are you ready? Right, let's go!

The search engine integrated into the ZIP.ch directory allows a targeted local search. It suggests results according to the terms entered by the user for the specified address (or location). It evaluates the relevance of the possible results, selects them and decides the order in which they appear, in particular on the basis of semantic criteria. If it does not find any data relevant to the search, it then establishes a list of results that best corresponds to the words entered in the search field, according to a specific process (in technical jargon this is known as a ‘fuzzy search’).

In order to influence the positioning of your listing to your advantage, the ZIP.ch platform offers you a range of powerful and complementary tools:

The business sector

The categories

The text (description) displayed in your listing

The Top Position (paid option)

The Enhanced Listing (Premium Business)

It is the tactical combination of these features that will significantly contribute to the placement of your listing in the search results, and thus boost your visibility and attractiveness to directory users.

How do you better position yourself?

First, make sure your listing is in the correct business sector and includes the best categories. Then write your text, taking care to include the words and expressions that best describe your main activity and your strengths as often as possible, while making sure it flows nicely for the reader.

The extension of characters and category included in your listing strongly reinforces your chances of being selected by the search engine according to the terms entered by the user - and therefore to appearing in a good position in the list of displayed results.

The Top Position option is an amplifier of the positioning parameters described above since it guarantees an optimal position in the search results corresponding to the terms entered by the user. As you will have gathered, it is indeed a combination of the influencing factors mentioned here that will propel you up the list of the most viewed entries in the ZIP.ch directory - in a given search scenario.

And Cédric, our Software Developer concludes: ‘directories and their search engine are a real technological marvel. We used all our resources to achieve this little miracle in such a short time. The result is very encouraging and we will not stop there!’